Meshchera, peat bogs, Solzhenitsyn, enchanting crystal, mysterious megaliths, platbands, Gzhel, Beloozerye, strawberries, churches, eagles, Queen Elizabeth and precious vases, Russian stoves and wood carvings - everything mixed into some kind of marvelous kaleidoscope of impressions and discoveries over four days. Although actually we went to a dacha to eat barbecue, in the village of Ilyichevo.
We've traveled before, but by train, but this time we decided to go by car. It took a lot longer, but it turned out to be much more interesting.
It was all the more interesting that I couldn’t find any detailed reports about these places in LiveJournal, at least not from popular bloggers. As usual, I wanted to compare impressions, but figs there. Empty. Now I feel like a pioneer (although I probably just didn’t search well).
This is approximately the travel itinerary after we left the Moscow region along the Yegoryevskoye Highway:
So, first you need to understand that this is Meshchera. Meshchera lowland. Such a remote, swampy, sparsely populated spot in central Russia, just two hundred kilometers from Moscow. A spot on the map is clearly visible, on which the names of settlements are thinning out. There are very few roads there, and even those often lead to a dead end, but there are a lot of lakes, rivers, swamps and picturesque landscapes.
People have settled there since Neolithic times, apparently because of good hunting and fishing. Since ancient times, Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples lived there, and from those times a bunch of names unusual for the Russian ear have been preserved - for example, the rivers Pra, Tsna, Shya, Pynsur, Sentur, etc. The very name Meshchera is precisely the name of the Finno-Ugric tribe. Well, as often happens with us, in the end the peace-loving Slavs came and dispersed all these infidels and the white-eyed miracle and successfully settled.
In Soviet times, extensive peat mining was carried out there and a gigantic network of reclamation canals was dug to drain the swamps. It is clearly visible on maps if you zoom in. All this was done barbarically , with disregard for nature and without calculating the consequences, as everything was usually done by Soviet idiots. And all this made no sense, of course - the former swamps were not used for agricultural use anyway, and peat was not needed in such quantities. But the nature of the region was irreversibly spoiled and the water balance was disrupted.
This created an eternal source of terrible forest fires - remember the “nuclear” Moscow summer of 2010, when it was dark for days due to dense smoke? 
It was all there that was burning. And it will continue to burn every dry summer. All that can be done to counter this is to place propaganda posters like “put out the fire” at every step.
However, now nothing reminds of that cataclysm; all around is grace, lakes and beautiful floodplains filled with fluffy greenery.
You want to stop there all the time and admire the scenery. For example, White Lake. The water there is really whitish, apparently from gray clay. 
Another interesting thing is that as you enter Meshchera, you often begin to come across some huge birds of prey.
Mostly brown, but there is also something white in the plumage. The wingspan is more than a meter.
They fly imposingly, with rare flaps, right above the road, sometimes even diving almost under a car. Or someone is being caught in the fields nearby.
I have never seen such birds before.
Judging by the directory there are more than 20 options, it turns out that they are found in Meshchera.
Holy shit, whoever is there - eagles, golden eagles, and all sorts of kestrels and goshawks.
Although later a local historian in Gus-Khrustalny told me that these were most likely buzzards, there are plenty of them there. 
But it’s definitely not him, my “eagles” are clearly larger. And the tail is different.
Mine have this characteristic feature - a tail with a notch. Harrier is best suited:
So this is my working hypothesis for today. This is our Vladimir eagle.
Eh, it’s a pity I didn’t film how he dived straight at the car, I had to brake. Polundra!!! Maybe a mouse crossed the road.
***
Then, completely unplanned, we came to a dead end, ran into a swamp - the navigator took a shortcut.
On the map above, this is the green line going up along the lakes.
But for this we were rewarded with the marvelous ruins of an old church (somewhere from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th, judging by the architectural elements): 
In fact, only a kind of power frame remained. The steel ties that prevent the brick arches from falling apart are visible. Well, isn't he cool? 
There is a village nearby - literally five houses. And not a soul. Occasionally only summer residents pass by. They told us how to get back to the highway faster.
It took a long time or a short time - we reached our Ilyichevo. Well, as usual, I really love kebabs and all that: 
Strawberries - the sea! On the roadside they sell for 250 rubles per liter.
Cheap, IMHO. I would hesitate to even collect this liter and feed the vile thing at the same time: the mosquitoes there are like helicopters, and sprayers are of little help from them, they still manage to stick somewhere.
Before feeding mosquitoes, it is better to take a walk/drive around the area. Sometimes you come across simply fabulous places; I have only seen such wonderful combinations of soil (white sand!) and strange plants there (I personally called it a “Martian landscape”): 
We still have to figure out what kind of spices are growing.
Well, when you also see something like this in the sky, you finally rush:
This photo shows the road from Ilyichevo to Mezinovsky. It is also a Peat product.
It is there that the events of “Matryonin’s Court”, the famous story (or rather, even a story) by Solzhenitsyn, take place.
It is now part of the compulsory school curriculum.
The fact is that Solzhenitsyn, having been released from exile, decided to get a job as a teacher in some remote place.
And it was these places that he liked. As he himself writes:
In the summer of 1956, I returned at random from the dusty hot desert - simply to Russia. No one was waiting for me or calling for her at any point, because I was ten years late in returning. I just wanted to go to the middle zone - without the heat, with the deciduous roar of the forest. I wanted to worm my way around and get lost in the very interior of Russia - if there was such a thing somewhere, it lived. //-/ Peat product? Ah, Turgenev didn’t know it was possible to write something like this in Russian! At the Torfoprodukt station, an aged temporary gray-wooden barracks, there was a stern sign: “Only board the train from the station side!” A nail was scratched on the boards: “And without tickets.” And at the box office, with the same melancholic wit, it was forever cut with a knife: “No tickets.” I appreciated the exact meaning of these additions later. It was easy to come to Torfoprodukt. But don't leave. And in this place, dense, impenetrable forests stood before and have survived the revolution. Then they were cut down by peat miners and a neighboring collective farm. Its chairman, Gorshkov, destroyed quite a few hectares of forest and profitably sold it to the Odessa region, thereby raising his collective farm. The village is scattered randomly between the peat lowlands - monotonous poorly plastered barracks from the thirties and houses from the fifties, with carvings on the facade and glassed-in verandas. But inside these houses it was impossible to see the partition that reached the ceiling, so I couldn’t rent rooms with four real walls. A factory chimney smoked above the village. A narrow-gauge railway was laid here and there through the village, and locomotives, also smoking thickly and whistling piercingly, dragged trains with brown peat, peat slabs and briquettes along it. Without a mistake, I could assume that in the evening there would be a radio tape playing over the doors of the club, and drunks wandering along the street - not without that, and stabbing each other with knives. This is where my dream of a quiet corner of Russia took me. But where I came from, I could live in an adobe hut looking out into the desert. There was such a fresh wind blowing there at night and only the starry vault swung open overhead. I couldn’t sleep on the station bench, and just before dawn I wandered around the village again. Now I saw a tiny market. In the morning, the only woman stood there selling milk. I took the bottle and started drinking right away. I was amazed by her speech. She did not speak, but hummed touchingly, and her words were the same ones that longing pulled me from Asia: “Drink, drink with your heart’s desire. Are you a sweaty newcomer?” -- Where are you from? - I brightened. And I learned that not everything is about peat mining, that there is a hillock behind the railroad bed, and beyond the hillock there is a village, and this village is Talnovo, from time immemorial it has been here, even when there was a “gypsy” lady and there was a dashing forest all around stood. And then there is a whole region of villages: Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudny, Shevertny, Shestimirovo - all quieter, further from the railway, towards the lakes. A wind of calm blew over me from these names. They promised me a crazy Russia. And I asked my new friend to take me after the market to Talnovo and find a hut where I could become a lodger.
Well, then a whole tragedy unfolds there, you need to read. It brings me to tears.
In fact, it is worth reading, an interesting thing, if you close your eyes to some oddities and conventions.
The main thing is that this story is written based on real events and about real people. Titles, names and minor events have been changed. Here's a good essay on all of this. It’s very funny that this whole attraction was first promoted by the Japanese! Yes, Japanese tourists went to the places of the story, found Matryona’s grave, and then the locals caught wind of the trick.
Now in the Mezinovskaya secondary school, where Solzhenitsyn taught, one of the rooms is given over to a museum. There is a sign hanging. The building was apparently built by captured Germans, like many surrounding houses. Very characteristic architecture.
And next to the school there is a kind of recreated Matryona’s house (the real one burned down quite recently, in 2012, under mysterious circumstances).
In fact, this is a very crude and poor imitation; the real one looked like this:
And in general, I was very fascinated by this topic: Solzhenitsyn in “Matryona’s Yard” describes in great detail the area, people, customs, and life of the village, and therefore now it is extremely interesting to compare all this with reality. Purely from the point of view of ethnography and history.
So I myself am not a fan of Isaich, although I recognize his enormous merits in the cause of anti-Stalinism.
But still, as a writer, I categorically don’t like him for his constant use of self-invented, absurd words, which at first you take for a local dialect, you try to take note of, but then you find out that it’s just bullshit and swear. For example: cockroaches were poisoned and this made them “menelo”. Not “less” at least, but “less”. Damn, fuck! What is this for???
And the documentarian in “The Gulag Archipelago” is a terrible one - he often uses ridiculous stories and unverified figures. Such liberties only harm the revelatory power of his research.
But let's return to Matryona's yard. It should be noted that there is practically no information on the Internet about this Mezinovsky Museum. It is mentioned briefly only in the local news about what they say they are going to do. And even the official website “Solzhenitsyn.ru” does not know about its existence. Wikipedia even more so. So here you go, catch the exclusive.
Unfortunately, in order to get inside, you need to call in advance and arrange an excursion. This time it didn't work out. But now it will be a matter for the next visit. I really want to go to the places of events and chat with the locals. I feel like there are a lot of interesting details waiting for you. Even now, on a whim, I managed to talk to one of the local residents about everything (this is just a small fragment). We asked her how to find the museum and ended up talking.
She told a lot of things, for example, that many in the village really disliked Isaich. For example, because he walked around with a camera, specifically looking for and filming all sorts of vile things. And in the dark story about life in the village, he greatly exaggerated.
Although, maybe they didn’t like him for the truth?
But in principle, I myself have already discovered blackish absurdities there. For example:
She didn’t announce what was for breakfast, but it was easy to guess: carto" unhulled, or soup cardboard(that’s how everyone in the village pronounced it), or barley porridge (it was impossible to buy any other cereal that year at Torfoprodukt, and even barley was a struggle - as it was the cheapest one, they fed the pigs and took them in bags). It was not always salted as it should, it often burned, and after eating it left a residue on the palate, gums and caused heartburn. But it wasn’t Matryona’s fault: there was no oil in the Peat Product, margarine was in great demand, and only combined fat was available. And the Russian stove, as I took a closer look, is inconvenient for cooking: cooking occurs hidden from the cook, the heat approaches the cast iron unevenly from different sides. But it must have come to our ancestors from the Stone Age because, once heated before dawn, it keeps warm food and drink for livestock, food and water for humans all day long. And sleep warm.
About the fact that the Russian stove is “inconvenient for cooking”, he famously bent it. Exactly the opposite - a Russian stove allows you to cook without burning, precisely because the heat comes from the side and in any case it turns out much more evenly than from a gas burner. Although if you don’t watch it at all, of course you can burn the porridge in the oven.
In addition, only in a Russian oven is the “simmering” mode possible, which is ideal for porridge and soups. There is such a way of cooking, the best - when you don’t cook quickly with a vigorous boil, but keep it for a long time in some gentle heat. It tastes much better this way.
In a modern apartment, simmering can only be done in the oven, and even then it is quite difficult. However, I will continue to experiment with this - in Ilyichevo we have exactly a similar hut to the one in which Solzhenitsyn lived. And there is a working Russian stove.
Which, by the way, could not have come “from the Stone Age itself,” but appeared only in the 18th century thanks to the invention of refractory bricks.
I also did not understand from Solzhenitsyn what these apostrophes mean when conveying village speech. Not only did he suck out some special local speech (in fact, they spoke and speak quite standardly, which is interesting, it’s not even there - and there are reasons for this), but he conveyed it in the text in such a way that you’ll understand hell , exactly how to pronounce it.
Drink, drink with all your heart. Are you a stranger, sweaty?
How to say these words - “desired”, “hide”? Does anyone understand what this apostrophe means?
For some reason, Solzhenitsyn is not sensitive to smells. Almost does not describe them, understands them poorly. There is an episode in the story - the cops came from the street to the hut to find out if there had been a drinking session there before. Which there was, and they drank moonshine.
So the brilliant writer was able to insidiously hide this fact from the “investigators” by covering the kitchen compartment with the remains of the “banquet”. Gosha?! Moonshine stinks so much that you could smell it on the street. Not to mention the heated, stuffy hut where a dozen men had recently been drinking. However, the inspectors did not smell anything and went home. I was very shocked by this unrealistic course of events.
Although, despite all the problems, it is still very interesting to walk around these places, look at old photographs, and communicate with the locals.
Well, the key feature of Gus-Khrustalny is, of course, crystal.
And don’t believe Vicki or any other slanderers that the plant is dead and they don’t make crystal there anymore.
They do everything there, so what! But there are nuances.
In general, initially I was indifferent to crystal. I used to associate it only with carpets on the walls, dull standard Soviet sideboards/walls, where everyone kept standard crystal glasses and washed them of dust on holidays. A symbol of such Soviet-philistine bullshit luxury. And they didn’t seem beautiful to me, it was all familiar and washed-out.
But first I went to the crystal museum in Vladimir, and now to the main one - in Gus, and my opinion has changed diametrically. It has changed so much that I bought factory crystal for 8 rubles. The two-tone crystal just fascinated me.
From now on I will only drink wine from glasses like these. Down with Ikea!
All this thanks, of course, to museums. There I suddenly felt how wonderfully my ancestors lived, how they enjoyed beautiful things and surroundings. I really wanted to crunch on some French bread.
The Crystal Museum in Hus is extremely interesting, unusual and amazing in its luxury.
Starting from the very building of St. George's Cathedral, one of the best architects of the Russian Empire, Nikolai Leontievich Benoit, to the exhibition, which shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow accompanied by classical music.
So, this cathedral itself is very interesting in terms of architecture and interior. 
From the outside, it is made like pseudo-Russian modernism, common for that time (early 20th century).
Initially, it looked almost like an ordinary Orthodox church (here is a photo of it before the Bolshevik “reconstruction”)
And inside it is a typical Catholic basilica!
Such a piece of Catholic Europe in the wilderness of Vladimir.
On the floor there are original Metlakh tiles, which have perfectly survived all the hardships and hard times:
On the western wall, at the exit, traditionally symbolizing hell in Orthodox churches, there is a giant painting by Vasnetsov on the theme of the Last Judgment. The scenes on the right are especially fascinating.
On the eastern, altar part - where heaven is, accordingly - a mosaic with the Virgin Mary, also based on a painting by Vasnetsov.
There is such a technique - smalt is glued directly onto a painting canvas, and then it is torn off.
Very fine work, the size of the mosaic pieces (smalt) is sometimes less than 3 mm. Done for several years:
This mosaic survived Bolshevism only because it was completely whitewashed in time.
But about the external mosaic with St. George the Victorious, the guide said that when Kalinin came to Gus in the 20s for an inspection, instead of the face of the saint, they painted a portrait of Kalinin himself. He saw it, freaked out and asked - what is this!?
And the locals answer him - and you are on horseback, striking the hydra of world capitalism with a spear.
Maybe a story, but funny.
The tour guide was excellent.
At first she began to mumble the memorized text in a boring tone, but as soon as we began to ask all sorts of smart questions, as soon as she saw that we understood what she was talking about and that we were interested in everything, she noticeably perked up, became cheerful, and even began telling stories from of my life and generally switched to such a human story, in my own words. Here she said that when she was little, she found the original brick fence of the cathedral and even managed to kick it with her brand new red shoes, ruining them in the process, for which her mother scolded her greatly. That’s how this cathedral stuck with her since childhood.
In general, I learned a lot of interesting things from the excursion.
So, what is crystal?
It turns out that there is no clear generally accepted definition, but specifically from the point of view of factory crystal makers, it is an alloy of glass with lead oxide in an amount of at least 24% (the more, the more expensive and cooler it is).
Lead oxide gives glass, firstly, viscosity, which allows it to be beautifully cut and processed.
Secondly, lead changes the refractive index for the better - crystal glares much better.
Thirdly, a characteristic “raspberry” ringing appears. I even conducted an experiment at home and compared it with a glass goblet from Ikea:
The only disadvantage of crystal is that the gilding does not adhere to it. Well, we’ll survive, he’s already so beautiful for sale:
These multi-colored products are made in the following way: hot, one colored hollow piece is inserted into another, they are immediately tightly fused, and then they are blown into the mold.
After cooling, they cut it, cut off the colored layers and get things like this. It's a bit expensive, though - this green and gold set costs 46,000 rubles.
But that's something else!
The pinnacle of multi-color crystal production is the Halle technique. There are many layers, which are then etched with hydrofluoric acid (hydrofluoric acid) to obtain complex patterns with penumbra. Queen Elizabeth of England collects such vases.
Each of these vases costs from 500 thousand to a lemon somewhere. Here in this showcase are several apartments in the Moscow region. The camera didn't convey the colors well, really.
And here’s what they said, where the expression “being under the fly” came from, i.e. drunk?
A fly was supposedly the name given to a special micro-glass that tavern owners ordered.
They say that when, by decree of Peter I, taverns were opened in Russia, to attract visitors, the first glass of vodka was poured for free. And to save money they were made very tiny, about 15 grams. They were called “flies”:
Some freeloaders managed to bypass several taverns and walked accordingly - “under the influence.” Of course, I have no confidence in the reliability of such an interpretation. But it's funny. In the end, what were these micro glasses made for? Not for children, is it? This is not a special order, they were made in large quantities.
Here's another interesting exhibit. These green glasses were popular for drinking Rhine wines in the 19th century.
This is a tradition - Rhine wine is drunk from a special green glass called a Romer.
By the way, the green color is obtained by adding uranium compounds to crystal.
In general, colors come in a variety of colors, and for this they are used - cobalt, copper, manganese, gold.
I was also impressed by this erbium crystal in the factory interior (this is the most expensive color option):
They look like they were carved from giant diamonds.
By the way, about the factory crystal showroom. It certainly makes a depressing impression from the outside (there is also a factory entrance):
At first it seems that everything is closed. But no! There are heaps inside every crystal. Your eyes widen and you want both.
All this is handmade and in very small editions. Many are made in a single copy
All this is sold with original packaging and branded labels.
But these goodies are almost never popular.
Next to the factory there is a large “glass” market, where everyone buys cheap Chinese glass.
I couldn’t get my camera up to take pictures of this shame, I don’t even want to look at them.
I have now solemnly vowed to never buy dishes from Ikea again.
If only I could learn to live like this:
Ideally, every thing in the house should be such that it would not be a shame to give it to a museum. People used to live like this.
We must strive for this.
And the Gusevites are definitely great with a museum; one like this could be a credit to the capital.
To be honest, I was expecting something simpler. It contrasts very much with the surrounding desolation and sleepy regional town. I specifically shot this video next to the museum. This is the city center, opposite the city administration. Check out the number of people and cars.
The only red car in the parking lot is mine. Hehehe.
Of course, there are busier places, not far away - near the shopping arcades. But the desert near such a super-nice museum is amazing.
What’s even strange is that the city administration is located in the building opposite - this is a former factory almshouse.
Just think about it! Over the past hundred years, no one has been able to arrange/find a building for the highest authority in the city better than the former home for the crippled and the elderly. What kind of care was there for people before the revolution, if a shelter for former workers was quite suitable for the modern city hall?
Do you know where the serf-peasant workers lived, who were bought by the Maltsov manufacturers, the founders of the glass factory?
Here in these individual stone (sic!!) houses with their own plots:
These houses are called Maltsovskie, there are hundreds of them. Entire blocks around the plant. They were built in the mid-19th century.
And this, by the way, is a unique feature of Gus-Khrustalny; there are no such houses anywhere else (as stated in the guidebook)
What struck me - despite the fact that the houses are standard - each has its own individual trim (window decoration).
I specifically looked closely, but I never found the same ones, they are all different shapes and types. At least in the same row. That is, the builders took special care to create a variety that simplifies city navigation.
Unfortunately, I didn’t bother to take a photo of Stalin’s barracks in Mezinovsky for comparison.
It would be clearly visible where and when there was bestiality and slavery, and where - everything for man.
Where the capitalists ruled, and where the red bastard ruled.
How Solzhenitsyn saw in the 50s - m The village is scattered randomly across the peat lowlands - monotonous poorly plastered barracks from the thirties - That's how it remains in some places. However, enough about the sad things.
But in the former pre-revolutionary Gus school there is now a local history museum.
And here it turned out to be a complete mess - there’s not much to see there yet. The museum is in the process of renovation and filling.
There is no space - only two rooms. There are no exhibits - Vladimir takes the most interesting things to his local history department, as the guide bitterly noted. Well, you can laugh at the gift to the city from Finnish glassmakers.
It seems to me that this is a real competitor to the stubborn fox:
No one knows why their goose came out with ears. No explanation.
But local local history enthusiasts are looking for large boulders in the surrounding forests and trying to pass them off as ancient temples.
I got into a conversation with a museum employee who is just passionate about this activity. And I wrote down part of the conversation:
I pretended to be a popular blogger and this guy invited me home to show me his mysterious finds, supposedly objects from ancient, thousand-year-old burials.
All of them turned out to be just pieces of ordinary stones, in which he sees the heads of wolves, bears and people.
for example, at the top right, in his opinion, is the face of a wolf in profile.
But he considered this slab to be a product of the mysterious technologies of the ancients, since he believes that the stone itself cannot break off in such a flat piece. In fact, this is common. Such rocks are often layered and split along the path of least resistance.
In short, it's all bullshit. There are no megaliths in Meshchera. And there’s a funny thing about his “blue stone” - he dug it up on one side, discovered that this side went deep into the ground, tapering, and from this he concluded that the whole stone was of this shape, symmetrical on all sides. Honestly admitting that he did not dig under other sides. That's just how he extrapolated. ;)
He could not provide a single verifiable fact or argument that this was a processed stone. Only empty assurances that he knows this for sure due to his extensive experience.
In any case, I was interested, even just in terms of practical psychology. How seemingly educated people move on the basis of the mysterious and create the wildest theories based on banal things.
So we closed the topic with megaliths and ancient sanctuaries and went to eat wherever we liked.
This looks like a nice restaurant: 
Absolutely empty on Sunday. This was alarming. 
And in vain. Everything was very tasty, except the kvass. .
Maltsov's pike perch was stuffed with crayfish necks, shrimp and other seafood and, in my opinion, was simply delicious.
And the prices are ridiculous, after those in Moscow.
Although I have a suspicion that it’s expensive for the locals, which is why the food stall is empty.
Thanks to Comrade Maltsov, and here he did not disappoint: 
Well, we had our fill and finally went back to Moscow, with a stop on the way to the “museum of wooden architecture” (more like wood carving), which is not far from Spas-Klepikov.
This museum is private, founded by a modern philanthropist, banker V.P. Groshev. who unfortunately died in 2009.
And now the museum is left without money and new exhibits, and the caretakers there are indifferent and completely demotivated.
I would say they were just phallomorphing.
An individual excursion consisted of jogging through the halls and quickly reading signs, which we ourselves could easily read without paying her 200 rubles.
The aunt answered the questions with indignation - “I don’t know.” This is the first time I've met such a crazy woman.
Although the exhibits there were amazing, and in general you could spend hours looking at the museum and learning everything.
There are collected both works by students of the carving school and from professional masters. Including foreign ones.
For example, this was woven by a one-armed (!!!) boy:
This is what our 15-year-old children can cut from a solid trunk!:
And what can we say about adult carvers:
Against this background, the wooden crafts of all sorts of Thais, Arabs and other infidels looked extremely artless and ridiculous (and people buy and bring all this crap!):
But the highlight of the museum is the model of Moscow from the 17th century. This is just a bomb:
Detailing and execution are at the highest level. I've seen many similar layouts, but this one is the largest and most impressive.
It's all made of bamboo (?) and wood. The creation of only one master - Viktor Ivanovich Bakharev.
He also makes framed miniatures using a similar technique, I couldn’t resist buying them. And the museum also supported it.
There is also an outdoor exhibition, but it is more for children. All kinds of swings, rides, and toys.
Well, for adults too! 
We also just took photos from the car, on the way to Moscow.
In the Ryazan region, ordinary puff pastries are called “fedotiki” - after the name of the company that sells semi-finished products for them.
In Gzhel there is a chapel, oddly enough, in the Gzhel style.
But the tented church in Novokharitonovo - there are quite a few of them, made of stone.
And this, by the way, is a purely Russian phenomenon in architecture. There are no analogues in the world. This form came from Russian wooden architecture.
With the church reform, according to the new rite, they were prohibited from being built in the second half of the 17th century, so this one is already from the beginning of the 20th century, and it is Old Believer.
In general, if you see such a shape on the top of a stone church, then it is most likely from the 16th century.
The most famous example is St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square.
Here's another joke - an Orthodox church built like a Catholic basilica. This is the mid-19th century, Assumption Church in Gzhel. 
In general, Gzhel clearly begs for a detailed visit. Not to mention the magical Meshchera with the Goose.
As usual, there are now even more plans than there were before the trip. It just whetted my appetite.
The Gusev residents made a great contribution during the Great Patriotic War. There were five hospitals in the city. In the fall of 1941, a defense committee was created in the city, and a fighter battalion of the people's militia operated. In a short time, production was rebuilt on a military scale. At that time, the Crystal Factory produced thermoses, flasks, flasks, thermometers, etc.
Gus-Khrustalny was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor () for success in the development of the domestic glass industry and contribution to the development of the national economy. In the 1970s, an embankment was built and the roads were paved. During the Soviet period, such large industries operated in the city as a crystal factory, a textile factory, a pilot plant, a glass factory named after Dzerzhinsky, a quartz factory, Shveimash, a fittings factory, an Institute of Glass, a creolin factory, a meat processing plant, a dairy plant, and a bakery. Clubs and schools were built, and children's country camps were opened.
The population of Gus-Khrustalny is more than 60 thousand people. Gusev Crystal Factory is the largest domestic enterprise producing art glass and crystal. In 1996, the city of Gus-Khrustalny was awarded the international prize “Golden Mercury” for preserving the historical and architectural appearance of the city. The Quartz Factory, the Textile Factory, Shweimash cease to exist, the Institute of Glass, the Crystal Factory, the Meat Processing Plant disappear... The rest of the production is split into pieces. Some are pulled apart, some continue to work somehow.
At the end of 2010, the entrepreneurs of Gus-Khrustalny turned to the head of government, Vladimir Putin, with a letter about the dominance of crime in their city: “More than three dozen arson, robberies, beatings and other “exemplary” crimes against business representatives. And these are statistics only for the last 4 months.” The situation in the city was described as "criminal terror". During the investigation, local law enforcement officials were removed from their positions and later resigned. The head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, came to restore order in Gus-Khrustalny. But there was no mass purge of the ranks of the local Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Vladimir Putin commented on the criminal situation in Gus-Khrustalny as follows: “As for that terrible situation in Kushchevskaya, and in Gus-Khrustalny, this is not only a matter of internal affairs agencies. Here the matter is completely different: the fact is that all government bodies turned out to be insolvent.”
Until 2010, Gus-Khrustalny had the status of a historical settlement, but by Order of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation dated July 29, 2010 No. 418/339, the city was deprived of this status.
In November 2011, the famous Crystal Factory, which gave its name to the city, ceased to exist. Production at the plant was stopped on November 5, 2011 due to a power outage due to debts of 11 million rubles. The last employees of the company were fired in January 2012.
In September 2012, Andrei Murtazin, the leader of the organized crime group that was then active in 2010, as well as his brother Ruslan Murtazin, were detained.
On December 26, 2013, the Crystal Factory resumed work, or rather its 4th workshop, which specializes in the production of colored crystal. The event to launch production was attended by the governor of the Vladimir region Svetlana Orlova, the chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the region Vladimir Kiselyov, as well as the head of the city Nikolai Balakhin.
Population
| Population | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1859 | 1885 | 1897 | 1920 | 1923 | 1926 | 1931 | 1939 | 1959 | 1970 | 1973 |
| 3282 | ↗ 6229 | ↗ 11 981 | ↘ 9971 | ↗ 12 191 | ↗ 17 910 | ↗ 25 500 | ↗ 40 225 | ↗ 54 158 | ↗ 64 516 | ↗ 67 000 |
| 1976 | 1979 | 1982 | 1986 | 1987 | 1989 | 1996 | 1998 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 |
| ↗ 69 000 | ↗ 71 598 | ↗ 73 000 | ↗ 75 000 | ↗ 76 000 | ↗ 76 360 | ↘ 75 900 | ↘ 74 800 | ↘ 73 400 | ↘ 72 300 | ↘ 67 121 |
| 2003 | 2005 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
| ↘ 67 100 | ↘ 64 900 | ↘ 61 900 | ↘ 61 013 | ↘ 60 784 | ↗ 60 800 | ↘ 59 653 | ↘ 58 571 | ↘ 57 616 | ↘ 56 676 | ↘ 55 973 |
| 2017 | 2018 | |||||||||
| ↘ 55 421 | ↘ 54 533 | |||||||||
As of January 1, 2018, the city ranked 302nd out of 1,113 cities in the Russian Federation in terms of population.
The city's population is decreasing due to the excess of mortality over the birth rate and the outflow of part of the working-age population to other cities.
Climate
| Climate of Gus-Khrustalny | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Index | Jan. | Feb. | March | Apr. | May | June | July | Aug. | Sep. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | Year |
| Average maximum, °C | −6,7 | −5,3 | 0,8 | 10,1 | 18,3 | 22,4 | 24,4 | 22,3 | 15,7 | 7,9 | −0,1 | −4,6 | 8,8 |
| Average temperature, °C | −9,8 | −9,1 | −3,3 | 5,2 | 12,6 | 16,8 | 18,9 | 16,7 | 10,7 | 4,3 | −2,5 | −7,3 | 4,4 |
| Average minimum, °C | −13,2 | −13 | −7,2 | 0,9 | 7 | 11,2 | 13,5 | 11,7 | 6,6 | 1,3 | −4,9 | −10,2 | 0,3 |
| Precipitation rate, mm | 41 | 31 | 30 | 43 | 48 | 74 | 70 | 70 | 54 | 65 | 50 | 50 | 626 |
| Source: Climate-data.org, Meteoinfo | |||||||||||||
Attractions
One of the city's attractions is St. George's Cathedral, built in 1904 at the expense of Yu. S. Nechaev-Maltsov according to the design of the architect L. N. Benois and consecrated in honor of St. George the Victorious. The cathedral partially preserves the paintings of V. M. Vasnetsov. Currently, the former temple building houses the Crystal Museum.
The Holy Trinity Cathedral dates its history back to 1816, when a small monastery appeared in the village of Gus next to the crystal factory. The temple was erected and named in honor of Saints Joachim and Anna. 35 years later, a temple was built next to the church and consecrated in honor of the Life-Giving Trinity. It was closed in 1936. Restoration work began only in 1989. Almost everything in the temple had to be restored from scratch, from the floors to the dome of the monastery and the bell tower, which was almost completely destroyed.
Education
Sport
Culture
- City Library Information Center;
- Cinema center "AlmaZ";
- Youth Palace "Crystal"
- Gus-Khrustalny Historical and Art Museum
- Crystal Museum
Hotels
- Hotel "Meshchera";
- Hotel "Barinova Roshcha";
- Park Hotel "Meshcherskaya Estate".
Monuments
Economy
The city is one of the centers of the glass industry; enterprises specializing in the production of glass and crystal products predominate. Among the city-forming enterprises:
- OSV "Steklovolokno"
- Gusevsky reinforcement plant "Gusar"
- Glass Research Institute
- Experienced glass factory
- Brickworks
- Meat processing plant
- Gus-Khrustalny Dairy Plant
- Enterprise "Bread Meshchera"
- Textile mill
In Soviet times, the Gusevsky Crystal Factory, the Steklovolokno Factory and the Gusevsky Glass Factory named after Dzerzhinsky were city-forming enterprises of strategic importance, which employed the majority of the city’s population. But in the 1990s, the country's disastrous economic situation could not but affect these factories. There were practically no government orders for glass production at that time. As a result, production was greatly reduced. Currently, a huge part of the production space is not used.
Transport
City buses
Main article: Bus station Gus-Khrustalny
There are 6 bus routes in the city. One of them connects the city with the nearest village of Gusevsky.
Suburban buses
The Gus-Khrustalny bus station provides regular bus routes. Directions: Vladimir, Ryazan, Moscow, Ivanovo, Voronezh.
Suburban trains
- The Gus-Khrustalny railway station of the Gorky Railway is located on a dead-end non-electrified single-track Vladimir - Tumskaya branch (two pairs of commuter trains daily). The line is served by diesel-powered trains consisting of 2-3 general or seated cars.
- From Moscow you can travel by electric train to Nechaevskaya station (with a change at Cherusti station), located 15 km from the city; there is a taxi platform at the station.
Energy
mobile connection
Mass media
Russian Orthodox Church
- Gusev Orthodox Theological School. Founded in 1995 Mitred Archpriest John Kravchenko [ ]
- Gusevsky parish. Church-chapel of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara.
Photo gallery of the city
Notable natives and residents
Notes
- Population of the Russian Federation by municipalities as of January 1, 2018 (undefined) . Retrieved July 25, 2018. Archived July 26, 2018.
- Gorodetskaya I. L., Levashov I. A. Russian names of inhabitants: Dictionary-reference book / Ed. E. A. Levashova. - M.: Russian dictionaries, 2003. - P. 91. - ISBN 5-93259-033-5..
- Pospelov E. M. Geographical names of Russia: Toponymic dictionary. About 3000 units. - M.: Book Nakhodka, 2002. - 352 p.
- THE USSR. Administrative-territorial division of the union republics on January 1, 1980 / Comp. V. A. Dudarev, N. A. Evseeva. - M.: Izvestia, 1980. - 702 p.- P. 106.
- Skulov N. Fire Tower (undefined) . Echo of Meshchera. (unavailable link)
- Criminal terror continues to emerge in Russian regions (undefined) . vesti.ru. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- Head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin will arrive in the Vladimir region today (undefined) . Echo of Moscow. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- Vladimir Putin is becoming more and more direct and linear // Kommersant newspaper. - 2010-12-17. - P. 1.
- List of historical settlements in the regions of the Russian Federation (undefined) . Russian newspaper (September 29, 2010). Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- Like crystal from Goose. What awaits the city after the closure of the famous plant. , RIA News(January 26, 2012). Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- "Gusevsky Crystal Factory" dismisses all employees, RIA News(January 12, 2012). Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- The leader of the "Eight" from Gus-Khrustalny was arrested, Lenta.ru(September 15, 2012). Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- Former eight player Ruslan Murtazin was detained in Voronezh, IA REGNUM. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- Lists of populated places of the Russian Empire. VI. Vladimir province. According to information from 1859 / Processed by Art. ed. M. Raevsky. - Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. - St. Petersburg. , 1863. - 283 p.
- Vladimir province, first general census of 1897. (undefined) . Archived March 1, 2012.
- Preliminary results of the census for the Vladimir province. Issue 2// All-Union Population Census of 1926 / Vladimir Provincial Statistical Department. - Vladimir, 1927.
A. Chistyakov, N. Kapkova
"New Poster" No. 10 (2005)
Narmocha parishThe village of Narmoch near the Sudogda River is located approximately 26 kilometers east of Gus-Khrustalny, in front of the village of Lesnikovo. According to toponymic data, the name of the village comes from the Mordovian word “narmun” (bird), which was later transposed into the word “Narmoch”. Only old-timers remember that a large, wonderful church once stood here. Now on the site of the former temple there is a wasteland overgrown with weeds and a modest village shop.
Until 1764, the village of Narmoch belonged to the Moscow Miracle Monastery. Since 1637, in the census books of the monastic and church lands of the Vladimir district, the Church of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist is already listed in the village, and with it a priest, a sexton and a mallow maker. Ponds were dug near the church. According to tradition, on Trinity Sunday local girls threw their wreaths of wild flowers into the water of a large pond. Whose wreath will sink faster will have a difficult fate this year.
In 1797, the old church burned down and a new one, but also wooden, was built in its place. The stone temple was founded only in 1842 during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I.
On the edge of the forest in the village of Narmoch there is a place that is still called “Brick”. Here, in the brick pits, craftsmen slaked lime. It is believed that the church was built precisely from the clay bricks that were produced here by the Druzhinin factory owners, who were subjected to dispossession and deportation after the 1917 revolution. The floor of the temple was tiled. The walls are painted with frescoes. According to local resident Lyubov Andreevna Isaeva (born 1925), the large bell weighed 250 pounds, and from the bell tower, all of Lesnikovo was visible in full view.
The refectory of the new stone church was consecrated in 1848, although construction of the main church continued until 1875. There were two thrones: the main one - in honor of the holy Prophet and Forerunner of Christ John, and in the warm meal - in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. In 1851, the old wooden church, which had become unclaimed, was dismantled. The temple was sufficiently equipped with utensils, a sacristy, icons and liturgical books. On one of the ancient altar Gospels there was the following inscription: “723. On January 21, he brought this Holy Gospel of the Volodymyr district to his estate in the village of Chiur in the Church of the Assumption of the Most Holy. of the Mother of God and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, steward Boris Lukin, son of Dubensky.”
It should be noted here that the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Chiur fell into disrepair by 1625. In 1698, the Dubensky votchinniki restored the church with parishes in honor of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, but in the 19th century this church also became empty. What remained of it was a dilapidated chapel, and part of the church utensils were moved to Narmoch. At the beginning of the 19th century, the villages of Lesnikovo, Maha and Lgovo were also included in the village of Narmoch from the Zakolpa parish.
At the end of the 19th century, under the Narmoch church, the following lands were listed: 1 dessiatine (1.09 hectares) of the estate, 5 dessiatines of hayfields, 27 dessiatines of arable land. The parish consisted of the village of Narmoch, the village of Chiur, the villages of Chekovo, Lesnikovo, Maha, Lgovo, in which 948 male souls and 1006 female souls lived at the end of the 19th century. Currently, in the village of Narmoch there are 46 households with a hundred inhabitants.
The village had a parochial school, in which in 1896 there were 27 students. At that time, the zemstvo public school in the village of Chekovo had 40 students.
The great patronal feast was celebrated in the village on June 7, the day of the discovery of the head of the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, John. At that time there was a large fair in front of the church. There was especially a lot of honey. The kids came up with their own trick for this. One of the gang rolled up his sleeves high, and it was his children who pushed into the barrel of honey in a demonstrative brawl. Having plunged into honey up to his elbows, the boy, apologizing, ran around the corner of the church, where the children who were already waiting began to lick his sweet hands. At that time, honey was perhaps the only sweet treat.
Trouble came in 1934. The God-fighting Bolsheviks threw the bells to the ground, while the large bell immediately broke, they brought scaffolding under the bell tower, knocked out the lower tier of bricks, after which the wooden structure supporting the bell tower arch was set on fire. All this happened in front of local residents, who were afraid that the high bell tower would collapse on nearby houses (the size of the church can be judged by the volume of the garage, built from church bricks, in the photo). Fortunately, this did not happen; the bell tower fell neatly. But combine operator Samarin from Novaya Makhi (Novopokrovskoe), who led the destruction of the temple, soon suffered retribution. His combine caught fire in a field, and the combine itself burned down along with the machine.
The remains of the temple were adapted into a garage and workshops for a machine and tractor station (MTS), later a land reclamation station. Once, on the night of Easter, an MTS watchman personally heard the unknown singing “Christ is Risen...”, which made him feel a great sin for deliberately destroying the church and quit his job.
Over time, they decided to build the MTS garage from church materials in another place, and the brick structure of the former church was broken down by tractors. The gravestones at the church graveyard were also broken. Small fragments of brick were taken to fill the road, and a new garage was built from whole church bricks. However, his life was short-lived. In 1992, equipment from the village of Narmoch was transferred to the village of Lesnikovo. Since then, the former MTS garage has become unnecessary. Its roof has been damaged, its window frames have been dismantled, and the building is currently crumbling without an owner. They tried to clean the ponds, but the barrier layer of clay was damaged, and now the water in the ponds does not hold.
Religious dalas in the village of Narmoch are supported by local resident Lidiya Ivanovna Aksenovna, whom many call the church warden. Well, everyone goes to churches everywhere: to Zolotkovo, to Zakolpie, to Gus.
Residents of the villages of Lesnikovo, Narmoch, Chekovo, Pochinki, and Chiur are buried at the local cemetery.
Gus-Khrustalny
Gus-Khrustalny is a city in the Vladimir region. It stands on the Gus River in the eastern part of the Meshchera Lowland. Founded in the 17th century. At first it was the village of Gus, like the river. In the middle of the 18th century, in Gus-Khrustalny, the Russian merchant Akim Maltsev built a factory producing crystal, after which the village became famous as the center of its production. The village began to be called either Gus-Maltsevsky or simply Gus. Officially, it was better known as the Gusev Crystal Factory. And only in Soviet times, in 1926, when Gusevsky district was formed, the village of Gus became the working village of Gus-Khrustalny. Since 1931, the village officially received city status. The city is still considered the flagship of the Russian glass industry. Another industry is developed in Gus-Khrustalny - textiles; the area is also famous for agricultural products.
Regarding the origin of the city’s name, there is a very convincing version, according to which the decoding of the city’s name literally “lies on the surface.” Since the city is located on the Gus River, the first part of its name clearly comes from the name of the river. Previously, this was the village of Gus. The second part of its name, the now existing Gus-Khrustalny, standing on the site of this village, owes its name to the fact that for several centuries it was the center of crystal production in Russia.
The name of the very river on which the city stands, for the perception of Russian people, has a “bird etymology” - one might think that it received it in honor of some kind of goose. Who knows, maybe this is really true. It is likely that the word that gave the name to the river is associated with some kind of cult of birds among the Slavs who previously inhabited this area. However, it is possible that this word is not of Russian origin at all, but goes back to Turkic or Finno-Ugric roots.
Local residents have a witty legend about how the city's name came about. It tells that Prince Vladimir’s wife, the princess, released her beloved goose into this river and at the same time said: “You are my crystal goose, swim, swim and rejoice! Now you will be free to live wherever you want - to sail!”
Gus-Maltsevsky
Even more than 5 thousand years ago, at the dawn of the Copper Age, the people whose villages stood along the banks of the Gus River and the Meshchera Lakes had a cult of the goose. The goose was considered a divine bird and was worshiped. This is evidenced by dozens of three-dimensional images of geese heads made of clay, stone and bone. During excavations of settlements of people of this culture, archaeologists found many goose bones that were more massive than those of wild birds. From this we can conclude that the inhabitants of Meshchera cut off the goslings’ flight feathers so that the bird could not fly away, and left them to spend the winter at home. Apparently, this was the first step towards the domestication of geese. Thus, Gus-Khrustalny is the capital of the area, which was originally one of the centers of geese domestication!
The city is located in Meshchera on the Gus River, 63 km. south of Vladimir.
The lands in the vicinity of modern Gus-Khrustalny, along the route of the Vladimir-Kasimov trade route, belonged to the Moscow Miracle Monastery.
In the village of Vyoshki, judging by the inscription on the ancient icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, from the middle. XVI century The Church of the Ascension of Christ already existed. “In 1575, the servant of Philip Ivanov, son of Serov, delivered this prayer from the Chudov Monastery to the village of Vyoshki for the Ascension of Christ.”
Start of glass production
In 1756, the Maltsov merchants in the Shivorovo tract on the Gus River began the construction of a glass factory, which gave rise to the famous brand Gusevskaya Crystal Factory and, in fact, the name of the city itself “Gus-Khrustalny” (see). The reason for construction is the need to withdraw their enterprises from the Moscow region, where the government banned glass factories due to deforestation. In particular, artisans from near Mozhaisk are transported to Gus.
In 1757, the Gusevsky Crystal Factory was opened in the village. Goose.
In 1759, the second plant was launched - Nikulinsky, which consisted of two gutters.
After Akim's death, his widow, Maria Vasilievna Maltsova, takes over. Over 20 years of management, Maria Maltsova founded 4 more glass factories and 1 cement factory. According to her will, Maria Vasilievna transferred all the glass production to her youngest son Ivan, allocating only a monetary reward to the eldest, Sergei. A few years later, Sergei Akimovich buys out all Gusev’s enterprises from his younger brother and establishes new factories nearby. In 1823, after the death of Sergei Maltsov, the “Maltsev glass district”, uniting factories in the Vladimir, Ryazan, Oryol, Kaluga and Smolensk provinces, was united again under the leadership of Ivan Akimovich.
Ivan Sergeevich Maltsov
In 1831 (1807-1880), having returned from abroad, he went to Gus and began to engage in factory affairs. Under him, the Gusev Crystal Factory received a kind of rebirth. Maltsov, who often visited abroad, began to introduce at his enterprises all the technical innovations that appeared in Europe. He also borrowed new products from other Russian glass factories that were in demand on the market. At the suggestion of craftsmen, a “sample chamber” was created under him, where products that were the best in beauty and complexity of design were stored. Soon the Gusev plant was transferred to the production of expensive crystal tableware. Now the plant could rightfully be called crystal. The best glassmakers were transferred here from other factories. In Hus, popular products were made from plain and colored glass with floral painting and gilding. Crystal products were famous for their diamond (diamond) cut and were decorated with engraving. Vases were produced from two- and three-layer crystal with etching. Already at the II All-Russian Exhibition of Manufactured Products, held in 1831 in Moscow, Gusev crystal was awarded a “small gold medal”. Two years later, Gusev’s products won a “big gold medal” at the St. Petersburg exhibition. Two years later, Maltsev products entered the world market.
In 1835, Maltsov, while abroad in the retinue of Nicholas I, studied the work of Czech factories that produced Bohemian glass, purchased production samples, and acquired manufacturing recipes. Soon the Gusev plant mastered the technology of manufacturing Bohemian products.
In 1844, construction began in Gus, which was launched in 1847. From the very first steps, the paper spinning mill was distinguished by its high quality yarn. Cotton was purchased in America, all equipment was English. At the All-Russian Exhibition of 1870, Gusev's cotton products were awarded a silver medal, and at the exhibition in 1882, a gold medal. In 1865, a paper and weaving factory also began operating.
In 1855, a two-story stone hospital with 50 beds began operating in the village. It granted the right to treatment to seriously ill people not only from the crystal factory village itself, but also from the villages of Velikodvorye and Zalesye. There was also a pharmacy.
Since 1864, the Gusev Crystal Factory has been open to children of artisans. In 1875, it was transformed into a two-class ministerial school with several parallel sections for men and women. The number of students in this school in 1896 was up to 450 boys and girls.
September 26, 1874, at Maltsov’s factory.
Nechaev-Maltsov Yuri Stepanovich
Nechaev-Maltsov Yuri Stepanovich
Born in 1834...
In 1880, Ivan Maltsov died. After his death, the Gusevsky Crystal Factory passed to one of his nephews - Yuri Stepanovich Nechaev-Maltsov (1834-1913). During this period, the Gusev Crystal Factory produced about 1/4 of the volume of glass products in the Vladimir province; in 1884, it employed 744 people. During this period, 3.5 thousand people worked at the paper spinning mill.
The number of crystal production workers by 1896 had increased to 600 people, the number of workers in paper spinning and weaving factories extended to 4000. The amount of crystal production was up to 400,000 rubles. per year, and the annual production of the paper spinning and weaving department is estimated at 4,000,000 rubles. The permanent population at the plant in 1896 was up to “10,000 souls of both sexes, but during the summer there are also up to 1,000 incoming working people (carpenters, masons, etc.”).
Rich and independent, with great artistic taste, Yuri Stepanovich was seriously interested in art. With his funds they built according to the design of L.N. Benois Church in Gus-Khrustalny. The fame of a generous philanthropist brought Nechaev-Maltsov his work on the construction of the Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts) in Moscow. He undertook the main expenses for the construction and decoration of the building and the acquisition of exhibits for its collection.
June 22, 1886.
In 1888, with the expansion of the second main production of the Maltsevs - textile, the Krutilno-Bleaching, Vigone-Spinning Mill (Krutilon) was opened.
In February 1889, Tsar Alexander III “deigned” to give his consent to the installation in the Vladimirsky boardroom of a portrait of the chairman of the board of trustees, actual state councilor Yu.S. Nechaeva-Maltsova.
In 1898, factory workers occurred.
Honorary citizen of the city of Vladimir on January 25, 1901, “for participation in the establishment of a zemstvo vocational school.” Honorary member of the Vladimir Scientific Archival Commission.
In the beginning. XX century Gus-Khrustalny became a large factory village. On the eve of the First World War, 12 thousand people lived in it.
In 1913, according to the will of the childless Yu.S. Nechaev-Maltsov, his fortune passed to his relative - Count
.
On January 20-25 (the exact date has not been preserved), the first in the country was held in Gus Khrustalny.
In 1918 the enterprise was nationalized.
By decree of the NKVD of February 25, 1919, Gus-Maltsevsky received city status. However, due to difficult material conditions, the lack of administrative buildings and any public utilities, housing, and funds to pay salaries to the city staff, Gus-Maltsevsky was unable to cope with city expenses and was subsequently transferred to the position of a workers’ village.
in 1921–1929.
in 1923.
“A mile and a half from the Gus-Khrustalny plant there is a workers’ settlement named after Herzen, where mostly workers live. The population reaches up to 1000 people, and with tenants more. There are up to two hundred young people alone. Meanwhile, no cultural work is being carried out. There is a Komsomol cell of 50 people, mostly newcomers who need processing. The population of the village works in Gusev factories and factories. A certain percentage is deducted from him for cultural needs, however, no cultural work is carried out” (Newspaper “Prazyv”, January 6, 1925).
City of Gus-Khrustalny
By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 23, 1926, Gusevsky district was formed. Gus-Maltsevsky was renamed Gus-Khrustalny and became a district center. There were 26 fairly large industrial enterprises operating on the territory of the county. With the liquidation of provinces and districts, the Gusevsky district of the Vladimir district of the Ivanovo Industrial Region was organized. The village of Gus-Khrustalny became a regional center on June 10, 1929.
In 1930, the villages of Nekrasovsky, Hertsensky, Krasny Oktyabr, and Khrustalshchikov were included in its boundaries. Some of these settlements appeared on the outskirts of Gus-Khrustalny at the end of the 19th century in the form of individual buildings of peasants from surrounding villages and volosts who poured here to earn money. Meanwhile, the importance of Gus-Khrustalny began to increase from year to year. The center of the glass district and a large agricultural region becomes cramped within the framework of a village with a meager budget for public utilities and housing construction. The district party committee and the district executive committee are raising the question of transforming the village into a city.
By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 20, 1931, the workers' village of Gus-Khrustalny was transformed into a city. On March 11, 1936 it became part of the Ivanovo region. The Gusev residents made a great contribution during the Great Patriotic War. There were 5 hospitals in the city. In the fall of 1941, a defense committee was created in the city, and a fighter battalion of the people's militia operated. In a short time, production was rebuilt on a military scale. At that time, the Crystal Factory produced thermoses, flasks, flasks, thermometers, etc.
On August 14, 1944, Gus-Khrustalny became part of the newly formed Vladimir region.
Gus-Khrustalny was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor (1981) for success in the development of the domestic glass industry and contribution to the development of the national economy. In the 70s An embankment is being built and roads are being paved. Industry is growing rapidly. During the Soviet period, large industries operated in the city, such as the Crystal Plant, Textile Plant, Shveymash, Armature Plant, Creolin Plant, Meat Processing Plant, Dairy Processing Plant, and Bread Factory. Clubs and schools are being built, children's country camps are opening.
Gusev Crystal Factory is the largest domestic enterprise producing art glass and crystal. In 1996, the city of Gus-Khrustalny was awarded the international prize “Golden Mercury” for preserving the historical and architectural appearance of the city. The Quartz Factory, the Textile Factory, the Shweimash cease to exist, the Glass Institute, the Crystal Factory, and the Meat Processing Plant disappear…. The rest of the production is split into pieces. Some are pulled apart, some continue to work somehow.
In con. In 2010, the entrepreneurs of Gus-Khrustalny addressed the head of government, Vladimir Putin, with a letter about the dominance of crime in their city: “More than three dozen arson, robberies, beatings and other “exemplary” crimes against business representatives. And these are statistics only for the last 4 months.” The situation in the city was described as “criminal terror.” During the investigation, the heads of local law enforcement agencies were removed from their positions and later resigned. The head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, came to restore order in Gus-Khrustalny. But there was no mass purge of the ranks of the local Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Vladimir Putin commented on the criminal situation in Gus-Khrustalny as follows: “As for that terrible situation in Kushchevskaya, and in Gus-Khrustalny, this is not only a matter of internal affairs agencies. Here the matter is completely different: the fact is that all government bodies turned out to be insolvent.”
Until 2010, Gus-Khrustalny had the status of a historical settlement, but by Order of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation dated July 29, 2010 No. 418/339, the city was deprived of this status.
On March 16, 2011, the last wall of the Steklovolokno enterprise collapsed. A huge cloud of dust filled the cordoned-off section of Kalinin Street for several minutes... From the former greatness of the first enterprise of this profile in Russia, all that remained was a pile of rubble and black and white photographs of the right bank of the Gus River with still smoking chimneys.
In November 2011, the famous Crystal Factory, which gave its name to the city, ceased to exist. Production at the plant was stopped on November 5, 2011 due to a power outage due to debts of 11 million rubles. The last employees of the company were laid off in January 2012.
In September 2012, Andrei Murtazin, the leader of the organized crime group that was then active in 2010, was detained, as well as his brother Ruslan Murtazin.
On December 26, 2013, the Crystal Factory resumed work, or rather its 4th workshop, which specializes in the production of colored crystal. The event to launch production was attended by the Governor of the Vladimir Region Svetlana Orlova, the Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the region Vladimir Kiselyov, as well as the head of the city Nikolai Balakhin.
Gus-Khrustalny is one of the cities of the small Golden Ring of Russia.
Coat of arms and flag of the city of Gus-Khrustalny
Coat of arms of the city of Gus-Khrustalny
“The coat of arms of the municipal formation of the city of Gus-Khrustalny is a quadrangular heraldic shield with rounded lower corners, pointed at the tip, depicting a goose in profile, with raised wings on a red and blue background.”
- Appendix No. 1 to the Charter of the municipal formation of the city of Gus-Khrustalny.
In Soviet times, there was a draft of the city’s coat of arms, known from the souvenir badges of 1968: a golden goose taking off in a black field. Later, another design of the coat of arms was issued on badges: in the upper part of the shield is the coat of arms of the Vladimir region, in the lower part is a silver flying goose in an azure field. The coat of arms designs were not officially approved.
In the post-Soviet period, at the end. 90s, the coat of arms of Gus-Khrustalny was officially approved (the exact date is not available in open sources of information). The coat of arms was entered into the State Heraldic Register of the Russian Federation with the assignment of registration number 452.
The city's coat of arms had the following appearance: with a scarlet (red) cross in half, in the upper part and azure (blue, light blue), in the lower part, a shield with a white flying goose.
Flag of the city of Gus-Khrustalny
The flag of the municipal formation of the city of Gus-Khrustalny is a rectangular panel with the image of a goose in profile, with raised wings on a red and blue background. The ratio of the width of the flag to its length is 2:3.
Temples of the city of Gus-Khrustalny
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- (St. Joachim and Anna).
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Orthodox educational institutions of the city
